You may think you know junken, but the variations are
endless. Some popular versions around my schools are:

あっち向いてホイ

and my personal favourite,

ULTIMATE JANKEN

also seen here in Gintama with a rubber mallet, which I think is much less fun:

Janken has an amazing power in Japan. It can be used to
settle any dispute, make any choice or divine the truth in a difficult
situation. I’ve seen kids trying to chose between two things jaken with
themselves to make the decision (easier than you might think, try it). The
greatest example however came during a class on superlatives. For some reasonall the best things happen when I teach comparatives and superlatives. It’s
better than any other topic. Get it?!Sorry… anyway. Moving along.

I asked the kids “who is the tallest in your class?” and
half said one name and half said the other. So the kids called on the two boys
to junken to settle the question. “Ummm,” interjected the JTE, “why don’t you two
just stand back to back?” “No way!” The rest of the class complained, “janken
is better…” So the boys juankened, and true to the awesome power of
junken, the boy who was actually taller won. “See,” the kids said, “junken is
always right.”Of course, you won't need janken to tell you that joining up with other J-Bloggers for a carnival is a great idea!

4
comments:

It's rock, paper, scissors not rock, scissors, paper. The "Hi Friends" book that 5th and 6th grade use RSP. It's frustrating and confusing for the kids because they see it in print, but I have to explain to them that in America we say it differently. By the end of the school year, I have the kids saying RPS. When they say "stone" instead of "rock", well, that's another story.

I do RSP because the gestures flow into each other smoothly. It's harder to get from rock to paper then back into scissors at speed. To be honest though, I don't think there is one set "Australian" way of doing it. Some people just do "1, 2 3!"

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